Manic Monday

"Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." Colossians 3:14
This verse sits on my desk. It's part of a piece of graphic design art by Kirsten Malcolm Berry, whose art I collect. The pieces I have so far have all been based on verses of scripture that have been meaningful to me. But this one if my favorite so far. For me, it's a much holier version of one of my favorite quotes of all time "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else. Can I get an amen?" ~ RuPaul

Because when it comes down to it, even on the craziest and worst days...the ones filled with bad news, the ones filled with frustration, the ones where you cannot find anything to wear in your closet full of clothes and your hair just won't sit right...it's love, love for yourself and love for others, that makes the day worth living. That's what operation fabulous is about...taking the time to love and appreciate yourself for who you are and living with one rule - be the best you that God made you to be. It's a rule that's easy to break sometimes, but it puts down a foundation for not only loving yourself, but loving others and the world around you and appreciating all that God has made.

Quick thoughts for today...

Thankful Thursday

It's a rainy Thursday after Easter...which means a sleepy Jen...

This means a thankful Thursday is in order

This week I am thankful for:
- A beautiful Triduum and Easter
- Baptism
- Easter Monday naps
- Easter Tuesday treats from Mom and Dad
- The ability to go to bed as early as I want to/need to
- Rain
- Thursday bible study
- The opportunity to spend the evening at Hollis (if you haven't been there and are in the KC area, you need to go)
- Local, organic milk

Starting over...

In December, I attempted to start a program to get me on track with eating healthier and exercising more. I did really good for about a month and then fell off the wagon.

So I'm starting again from scratch.

Here's the low down from this morning:
Current weight: 166
Desired weight: 135-140
Miles walked: 2

The plan is to not have grocery trips like Monday's where the post-Easter exhaustion led to a basket filled with 2 kinds of potato chips, fried chicken, coke, and toilet paper. (At the time, all those items were necessary)

Instead, we will start getting our milk from the Iwig dairy store, where the milk is a bit more expensive, but it came from cows who live only 20 miles away, so that's super cool. We will also begin increasing the frequency with which we visit the farmer's market, which opens Saturday! I will begin walking to church more (a win for me and the environment) and our food menus will again attempt to be more health conscious.

We will still allow for a once a week pizza night since we have become addicted to our pizza stone and, besides every day cookware and dishes, it is the most used item in our kitchen. But we've also started eating healthier pizzas that taste just as good as the five cheese, four meat, etc, etc, pizzas.

My two rules for sanity:
1) Sunday is my exercise day off unless I decide otherwise (sometimes I like to walk to church on Sunday mornings, it's nice)
2) Unless something is planned for that day, Fridays will still remain no alarm clock day. Sleep is just as important as exercise in my book.

Where I need help:
1) I have a plethora of amazing cookbooks that I wander around the house with on a regular basis and use as the basis for our menus. But sometimes I just need a quick, easy, recipe for nights when I really don't feel that much like cooking. So I'm looking for recipes that are on quick and easy par with the recipes you find on the cambell's soup labels, but healthier (Though honestly, their chicken and rice with low fat cream of mushroom soup is awesome). If you've got any like that, feel free to share!
2) Folks to ask how much I've walked in the past week. I usually do great the first couple weeks but then slack off. So it's about week 4 that I need people to bug me.

Let's do this!!!

Sermon from Lent 5B

Lent 5B

March 25, 2012

Jeremiah 31:31-34

I think one of the most potentially dangerous platitudes in our modern age is “forgive and forget.”  In some situations it is helpful.  Like, say, if your best friend Sally, who you’ve known for 10 years and has been a very loyal friend, ditched you after promising she would go with you to the opening night of the Hunger Games.  Or, if you happen upon an acquaintance who is having a bad day and you accidentally say the last thing they wanted to hear that day and they read you the riot act.  In both of those cases, forgiving and forgetting are helpful in restoring and rebuilding relationships that are healthy. 

When the pain caused by sin is deep and the relationship is beyond repair, however, the words “forgive and forget” can do more harm than good.  The parents of Trayvon Martin might forgive the man who killed their son, eventually, but they will never forget who, why, or how their son was taken from them.  There may be peace in this country right now, but we will never forget the time when this country was divided between confederacy and union.  We may be allies with Japan now, but we will never forget the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  We may forgive the person who turned our lives upside down in a negative way, but we try to learn from what happened so we can avoid that situation in the future.

And maybe this is why the text from Jeremiah can prove to be troubling at times, but especially in times that we are unable to forget, and in times that we don’t want to forget. 

It may have been just as troubling for the Israelites living in Jerusalem right after the temple was destroyed and Jerusalem itself fell to the Babylonians.  Living in the midst of the dust and the rubble of the sacked city, the people were wondering why this had happened…and who was to blame.  They only needed to look north to Judah, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians, to see that there wasn’t much hope left, if any.  It probably seemed as though God had forgotten them. 

But then again, the Israelites had memory issues of their own.

The folks in Jerusalem had issues with forgetfulness…not anything like dates on the calendar or things of that nature, but rather they had a real easy time forgetting a certain covenant. A few generations had passed since the exodus and the people had forgotten was it was like to be delivered out of the hands of slavery in Egypt and be brought safely into freedom.  And they had forgotten just who it was that had rescued them from the Egyptians.  Maybe they had even already forgotten what it was like to live in the time before Jerusalem was destroyed.  In doing all of this forgetting, the Israelites had broken the covenant they had entered into with God at Sinai, a covenant that was very much like a marriage covenant, God being their faithful husband…but the Israelites were unfaithful to this covenant with God and had taken other lovers, as it were, being led by their leaders to seek out other deities to worship instead of the one who had brought them into the land promised by Abraham and Sarah and their descendants. 

Even in the midst of this forgetfulness on the part of the Israelites, paired with the unfaithfulness, the betrayal, and the sinfulness, God had remained faithful and present with God’s people, remembering his covenant.  In seeing all that was going on in the hearts and minds of his people, God decided that the best way to deal with God’s people was to choose join the people in forgetting.  God’s forgetfulness, however, doesn’t land in the same category as that of the Israelites.  In spite of all the ways that they had been unfaithful and had sinned against God, God decided that the best way for the relationship between God and the people to be restored and rebuilt was for God to wipe the slate clean and to choose the path of amnesia where sin is concerned. 

God formed a new or, more accurately, a renewed covenant with God’s people.  One that required nothing like the covenant at Sinai, in which the people were held accountable for their actions, and ultimately did not hold up their end of the deal.  This renewed covenant required no sacrifice, no down payment, no signature…instead, God decided to write the law on the hearts of the people…to put it inside of them, as opposed to tablets of stone which can break or be lost or stolen...and God promises in this covenant to forget the sins that had been committed that fractured the relationship between God and the people.  Nothing was asked or is asked in return for this. 

This is God’s way of reaching out in love and allowing us to start fresh each day, without the guilt of I should haves, or I shouldn’t haves following us around.  It is no wonder this passage comes from the portion of Jeremiah called the book of consolation.  What comforting words to hear, that God will remember our sin, no more. 

Sometimes I wonder, though, if it would sound more comforting to us if God’s chosen forgetfulness was selective.  What do we do if God’s forgetfulness extends to people who have done really awful things? Shouldn’t God’s forgetfulness of sin go to a certain level?  And what if God forgets something I cannot?  Has God forgotten the sin of the perpetrators of the holocaust, or 9/11?  Has God forgotten sin of the men who killed Malice Green or beat Rodney King or shot a teenager armed with iced tea and skittles? 

I want to say that it’s a really comforting thing when God says that God is going to remember our sin no more…but at the same time, I have a hard time thinking about God forgetting about the sin involved in those atrocities.  And I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in that.

This discomfort gives us a couple options.  We can forget we heard the words of Jeremiah and go along on our merry way pretending that the phrase “ignorance is bliss” is true.  Or we can take our discomfort and use it to help us to speak out when the injustices of the world take place…and we can use this discomfort to keep us awake and to remember.  This doesn’t mean remembering our own sins and the sins of others, but rather to remember as Christ asked us to remember.  When Christ sat at the table with the disciples the night of his betrayal, he asked them to observe similar meals in remembrance of him…a man who devoted his earthly ministry to spending time with the outcast, speaking out at injustice, and in teaching about a kingdom of God that made some of the more comfortable folks around him pretty uncomfortable…in fact, he made them so uncomfortable that they hung him on a cross, in hopes that his message would fade into the sunset.  But even on that cross, Christ cried out that God would forgive those who put him there. 

There are certain things that are easy to forgive and forget, whether it is forgiving others or forgiving ourselves.  And there are things that are significantly more difficult, even seemingly impossible to forgive or forget.  But we have a God who does what we cannot, choosing to renew his covenant with us without asking anything from us…instead doing all the work, wiping our slates clean and remembering our sin no more.

An open letter to seminarians awaiting call...

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Most of you don't know me. I am 2009 graduate of LSTC and am in the third year of my first call, serving Trinity Lutheran Church in Lawrence, KS as their associate pastor.

After having been in a call for almost three years, I have been doing some reflecting on things that I could have done differently to make my life a little bit less stressful. Most of the past three years I would not change as my first call has been a great blessing to me. But there is one area I would definitely handle differently if given another chance to do things again.

Money

I graduated from seminary, as many of you are, with significant loan debt. In addition, moving half way across the country is not cheap, as many of you who are awaiting call are about to discover. Those of you awaiting call will also discover the glorious nature of the clergy tax system (I say glorious sarcastically). So here are some tips from someone who has made some mistakes and has learned a WHOLE bunch from these mistakes which will help me and my husband in the future.

1) If you have student loans, find the best payment plan that works for you NOW. If you have Stafford loans, you can consolidate them through direct loans (the federal government) which will allow you to extend your payment schedule to 20 years (but only if you need to). But do what you can to figure out what your payment amounts will be before you get that first bill and have a heart attack (or cry, like I did).

2) If you have any credit card debt, pay off as much as you can as fast as you can. When the student loan companies come calling, you won't have as much money to put towards your credit card debt and having that monkey off your back will be a great relief.

3) When you receive a call, find a tax accountant who specialized in clergy taxes (If you're in the Kansas City area, I know a great accountant). Meet with them as soon as you are able so you can talk through the clergy tax rules so that you have a working knowledge of what you need to do so you don't get penalized for not paying your taxes quarterly.

4) If you're in the market for a new vehicle, check out the tax laws in the state you will be moving to. Some states require you to pay property tax on your car so, at least for now, a used car might be a better option in multiple ways.

5) We have had faithful giving and tithing practices drilled into us throughout seminary. But this is what I was told by a Lutheran Planned Giving representative...don't give more in your offering than you are able to put into your savings account. It is the best financial advice I've received. We'll all be able to tithe at some point, but when we are just starting out that isn't always possible. So the important thing is that we give faithfully and not feel guilty because we cannot give more. (I tell folks that right now, that the majority of my giving is paying off student loans that allowed me to be faithful to God's call to ministry).

Some of this advice (particularly #4) will be more or less helpful depending on where your first call takes you but I do hope that at least one of these points will be helpful so that the stresses surrounding financial matters will be as minimal as possible as you set out on this amazing adventure called the ministry. God will provide you with so many blessings in this journey. It's not always easy, though, so having a handle on one of the few aspects in life that you do have control over (to a certain extent) is helpful.

I wish you blessings, hope, peace and love as you go out into the places that God is calling you to serve.

In God's love,
Jen Kiefer, LSTC class of 2009

Postscript: Dan K. has shared a lovely resource with me that provides help for folks paying back federal student loans. http://www.ibrinfo.org/ is the website. For those of us who have at least part of our loans through private lenders, however, it's a little more complicated and a lot more frustrating. The last time I tried to call Citiassist, they didn't even offer up an option to speak with a real human being. Moral of the story: if you can get most or all of your loans through the federal government, this is the way to go. They are willing to help you.

Sermon from Lent 3B

Lent 3B

March 11, 2012

Exodus 20:1-17

When I was in high school, I thought things were pretty unfair.  I didn’t think it was fair that the other kids I went to school with got to go to parties and I didn’t.  I didn’t think it was fair that the other kids got to stay out past midnight on the weekends but my curfew was 11 o’ clock.  I really didn’t think it was fair that a couple years later, my parents extended curfew for my brother and sister…and when I turned 21, they admitted that maybe it wasn’t all that fair that they had been more lenient with my brother and sister than they had been with me, their first born.  But by that time…and even more so in the time since, I have come to appreciate the rules that my parents laid out for me when I was a teenager.  I know that those rules were intended to keep me safe and out of trouble...even though, for my parents, it meant putting up with some teenage angst every once in a while.

I don’t know if you would call it teenage angst that God and Moses and Aaron were putting up with…it was probably more like desert angst, or wilderness angst…whatever it was, there was some angst going around.  The Israelites had just been rescued from the hands of their slave masters in Egypt and were now in the midst of their journey to the Promised Land…the land that God had pledged to provide to Abraham, Sarah and their descendants.  But it wasn’t exactly a drive down I-70 from Lawrence to Kansas City…there were issues along the way, as tends to happen when you are on foot in the wilderness and there aren’t any oases nearby…and the people weren’t afraid to let Moses and Aaron hear how unfair they thought it was.

“Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?”

“If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

When the Israelites cried out in protest of their conditions, God listened to their complaints and mercifully provided them with water from a rock, quail at twilight and manna in the morning.  Later, when Amalek attacked the Israelites, God made the Israelites victorious over their enemies. And, in Chapter 19, they finally reached Mount Sinai.  It is here, at Sinai, that God entered into a covenant with the Israelites.  A covenant unlike those God made with Abraham and Noah.  This new covenant that God was about to forge with the Israelites was a mutual covenant, one that depended on both the actions of God and the actions of the Israelites. 

“You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. ⁵Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, ⁶but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”

Now we stand with Moses, whom God has bid to come up Mount Sinai alone, and it is now that Moses receive the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments were an outline of the rules that the Israelites needed to follow if they wanted to be God’s people.  They are a set of rules that show a way of life that has its sights set on peace and justice and was intended to put us in a right relationship with our neighbors and the community around us.  And this way of life lived in right relationship with our neighbors is informed by a right relationship with God. 

The Ten Commandments, as provided to Moses for the use of the Israelites, were carved into stone and given to the people as a way of showing the Israelites how they, as the holy nation of God, could live as a sacred community…worshiping God and serving their neighbors.  

And they do the same thing for us, showing us ways in which our relationship of God informs our relationship with those around us.  For example, we worship God together as community because we are intended to live together as community and the commandments show us how to best do this.          

At the same time, however, the Ten Commandments are much more than just rules.  They are reminders of who we are, whose we are, and what we were made for. 

In the formulations of some of the Commandments, we see the creation of the identity that belonged to the Israelites.  The commandments begin with a statement about God, the one who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.  In the third commandment, there is a reminder that God created the heavens and the earth and the waters below the earth and then, on the seventh day, God RESTED.  In the fourth commandment there is a reminder of the ancestors who were first promised a land set apart just for them and their offspring. 

For Moses and the Israelites, and for us, there is in the Ten Commandments, not just a way of being in relationship with one another, but there is also an identity…as created, called, and claimed children of a God who is faithful and loving, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  We were created to live lives that show others the love of God, by being people who value justice, mercy, and love for our neighbors.  

And this is the good news that comes out of the Ten Commandments, God is patient with us…God is willing to give us extra chances to get it right…because left to our own devices, we’d be in trouble.  It wasn’t even before Moses came down the mountain with the commandments that the people had created the golden calf, and God was ready to wipe out this people whom God had said earlier would be a priestly people and a holy nation.  But Moses intervened and God changed God’s mind and the Israelites were spared.  And we continue to see a progression of how God is willing to look for different ways of connecting with God’s people. 

When we didn’t hold up our end of the covenant, God tried different ways of getting through to us.  But the problem is that none of us can keep all 10 commandments at all times.  Our sinful nature has bound in us the inability to be perfect, whether we like it or not.  That being the case, even if we try with all our might, there is nothing that we can do on our own to become perfect. 

So God came down in Jesus Christ and formed a new covenant, one in which Christ’s faithfulness was enough for all of us.  We are joined to Christ in this covenant through our baptism and we remember the covenant each time we come to the table, joining our brothers and sisters of all times and all places in a meal that gives us a foretaste of the feast to come. 

The commandments help us in our life together, they help us to live in community and in our relationship with God.  But they also remind us of who we are, whose we are, and what we were made for. 

Thankful Thursday

I find myself in a strange place today. I can't tell if it's a place of over reacting to the world around me, a state of righteous indignation, or the fact that I've been suffering from a migraine for the past 36+ hours.

Fortunately, I know a remedy for this = Thankful Thursday!

Today, I am thankful for

Awesome worship last night, with Holden Evening prayer and Luther's Small Catechism as the centerpiece. Worship was made even more awesome by the incense and increased volume of children present.

A God, whose word and sacraments remind me of a faithfulness and love that is unconditional and overflowing.

6 months of marriage that I will celebrate with Chris on Saturday. Can't wait for the months, years and decades to come!

Brand new pew cushions for the sanctuary. True, my feet can no longer touch the floor, but they will make things more tolerable for some of the older folks who have had a hard time sitting through worship because of the old pew cushions.

A bible study group that puts up with my strange tangents and crazy ideas, like let's take a break from reading apocryphal gospels to talk about early church heresies! (they even volunteered to research the heresies!!)

Grace abundant

Colleagues I can laugh with, even after interesting political discussions.

Motrin


Soli deo gloria